


For Lovers Who Hesitate

by alchemene



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baby Teddy Lupin, Character Study, Cute Teddy Lupin, F/M, Forced Marriage, Forced Pregnancy, Harry Potter is a Good Friend, Harry is trying, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Law Enforcement, M/M, Marriage Contracts, Multi, Post-War, References to Depression, They’re all trying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29889948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemene/pseuds/alchemene
Summary: The Ministry passes a new law, and Harry begins to see the world as it is.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Kudos: 26





	For Lovers Who Hesitate

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Implied/Referenced Character Death and Depression. Forced Marriage.

Harry peeled at blistering burns settling down onto his bony knuckles and his aching palms. They bubbled up from his grip on the rake while he worked away in his Aunt's garden under the summer heat. Her _precious_ garden, she corrected. That meant he had to work extra hard on it.

He gave all the plants he weeded names—Spout, Plum, Snow, and Blueberry, they were sharp in his memory. They were his sole friends, the ones he could sneak past Dudley’s lackeys and the tick in Petunia’s perfection. 

They were his flowers. It was _his_ precious garden. 

Never had he recalled seeing his flowers and shrubs the summer after; he’d filled his memory with the Mirror of Erised and Ron and Hermione and Hogwarts. He couldn’t remember the garden, the beautiful garden of Delphiniums and Sweet Peas, all of it replaced by artificial hydrangeas and fake roses.

His wish was that he could someday recall spending his summer hurting from it instead of writing letters to Ron and Hermione. 

All his memory could serve him was the brightness, the happiness he’d radiated under the pretense losing his flowers had hurt him.

* * *

**DEATH EATER DISAPPEARANCE:**

**UNDERSTAFFED AUROR DEPARTMENT TO TAKE BLAME**

_Friday, 15 March, 1998_

_London, England_

_By Aceline Snell_

_For the duration of the Death Eater trials, better known as the ‘Pureblood Masacre’ from minor commentary columns, a number of 31 convicts have vanished from the Auror Department’s holding cells. When asked to give a formal statement, Head Auror Robards gives no response but aims to take accountability._

_In spite of his show of liability, the Council of Magical Law has given no legal disclosure on the missing offenders. Instead, the Council has chosen to put the matter aside in an effort to continue the Trials._

_The family members of the convicted plead for an investigation, but the Auror Department have no officers to handle the case. In addition, the Ministry has not authorized for the case to be handled. Through of all this, a single question arises:_

_Is another ‘Pureblood Massacre’ being sanctioned on the side?_

_(cont. page 09)_

* * *

Harry doesn’t make much of the paper when he first reads it. He makes his way into the _Volunteer Facility_ within the Auror Department, leaving behind whatever opinion his brain could muster up about the article. 

_“Relinquere.”_ It was complicated; the entire process, the hand movements, the amount of power he had to put into the spell, all of it, complicated. _“Relinquere!”_

His body tingles, bursts of magic shooting into his wand and out of it in the form of a pale white light. He almost forgets to be happy for accomplishing something he’d been working on for weeks because of a tingling at his neck. 

Ron stares at him from across the training room—his past nine attempts seem so loud in the moment. Harry chooses to be quiet. 

When he first sees it, he doesn’t make much of it.

* * *

**V.A.G. ORGANIZATION OVERCROWDED:**

**THOUSANDS OF RESIDENTS GO WITHOUT HOMES**

_Monday, 25 May, 1998_

_London, England_

_By Aceline Snell_

_Excessive use of the Black Smog Curse brought not just death, but the contamination of it’s Dark Magic. As a result, the prospect of Dark Magic poisoning has forced them from their homes while taking as little as themselves with them._

_We are fortunate to have a wonderful organization like V.A.G. (Vast Accommodation for the Grateful), but they too reach their limits._

_Beds are filling at a fast pace, yet food and other resources aren’t in coming fast enough. Auror's work to clear a minimum of 500 homes a day, and, despite that, the number of rooms still decreased._

_Should the number of donations to the organization rise, the number of uncomfortable stays would plummet. If the number of volunteers rose, the number of stays would drop._

_(cont. page 09)_

* * *

Harry heard about it through Hermione. 

“Almost two hundred people volunteered today, Harry,” Hermione explains in one breath, textbook just about slipping through her fingers in her livened mood. “ _Two hundred._ Can you believe that? I hardly could when I first heard it.” 

He tells her that it's brilliant, because it is, but his eyes stray to the book in her hands like they always do. ‘How to Pinpoint a Psychopath’, the cover read. 

Whenever he asked her about it, she’d recount how her parents sent it to her after her short trip to Australia and nothing more. 

Harry never said anything more of it, but his heart would clench whenever Ron and her would sneak away in a flurry of whispers and tears. 

It wasn’t his place to ask about it. 

Once, he glanced at the pages she kept so hidden and obscured, his eye snagging itself on a single line of bright blue highlight:

**IF SOMEONE YOU KNOW EXHIBITS THESE SIGNS, PLEASE FIND PROFESSIONAL HELP.**

Harry never asked about it. 

* * *

**DISTURBANCE IN THE MINISTRY**

_Friday, 5 June, 1998_

_London, England_

_By Aceline Snell_

_Several reports have been given on the confusion circling the Ministry—missing departments, trap doors, some cases speak of worker disappearances as well._

_As of today, two members of the Wizengamot have been pronounced ‘Missing’: Endy Culmstoke and Lean Aubigny. Both are prominent figures in the Wizarding society, be it with charitable contributions or their long list of positive political deeds._

_Many more occurrences are rising to the chaotic challenge, including various major assaults that continue to plague curious onlookers at damaging rates._

_(cont. page 09)_

* * *

The letter comes quiet; soft paper, immaculate stamp. Simple and quiet. On the inside, however, the words are loud, so loud that he has to take a second to breathe. 

_Harry J. Potter,_

_You are hereby called forward as the current Prime Wizard to aid the Ministry. Any acts of insubordination will not be tolerated._ The _Wizengamot_ _will await your assistance on_ Tuesday, 9 June, 1998 _at 10 o’clock sharp._

_Signed,_

_Chief Warlock Paris Nixon_

Though the letter was blaring into his ears, the fire that swarmed the tips of his fingers was deafening. He closes his eyes, letting the ash fall to the floor of Grimmauld. 

Harry decides that Ministry paper burns the best out of every paper—better than the interview letters, better than his friend’s jittery handwriting, the fan mail, the Prophet. 

He exhales, allowing his buzzing magic to sink into him, vanishing the dust without a single twitch. It still crackled at his skin, but the silence was pure bliss. 

Even if his eyes were closed, he could see the envious eyes, the sad eyes; the green glowing eyes that haunted his mirrors. 

But, for one minute, he didn’t have to see anything or keep his mouth closed or forgive and forget. 

He was breathing. 

* * *

  1. _2 Weeks BS_



Headaches were inevitable. 

Harry rubbed at his temple, helpless from the jaws of an oncoming migraine. A potion was a bucket of water on a forest fire—he stopped taking them though Hermione kept pouring them into his juice. 

“They’ve no right to just order you about!” His jaw ticked, and she carried on, raging through the pages of the Ministry’s annual volumes that featured their laws and protocols. “It’s not right!” 

He cradled the cold glass of cranberry juice in his fingers, thumbing at the slippery slope of the top. It was a hot day, he notes.

Pressure prodded from behind his eyes, pulsing when Hermione slammed the book shut in frustration. His teeth clenched, eyes flicking closed as well, at the heaviness in his head.

“Are the headaches getting worse?” She questions, pulling a notebook out her bag beneath the table. A fleck of bacon flew off the table, and her glossy black hardback took its place. 

He hesitated. “They’re not much.” 

She opens her mouth, as though to berate him for not taking the potions she brewed a week ago, and then closes it. “Alright.” She sighs, “There aren’t many options for you here, Harry.” 

“For the headaches?” A water drop dribbles down from the mug—his favorite mug that Hagrid bought him, sheepish and smiling, when he visited during his volunteer hours a few weeks back—to his knuckles. 

“The letter.” Hermione slid an open notebook in front of him, still staring at him like a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. “The problem is that it all seems legal.” 

He wipes his hands on his denim jeans, leaning forward to take a glance at her familiar script. 

_A Prime Wizard is a person who holds the current power within the territory lines of Britain, or within other countries._

_The Prime Wizard is under obligation to aid in any emergency necessities that the Ministry must have carried out. Because of the Prime Wizard’s identification as a citizen, they cannot be called on for more than five times a year._

“It’s sensible to consider you the Prime Wizard after having defeated the man to be regarded as the most powerful wizard.” At his sour face, she rushes, “ _However_ , they shouldn’t pinpoint _you_ out of all the other wizards and witches in Britain if they’re empty on evidence that you are the most powerful wizard in Britain.” 

“I doubt they have the means to,” he says, putting his glass down. “If they did, they’d make no mistake of doing it and coming out wrong.” 

It’s quiet for a moment, the muffled sounds of the park and the busy streets sweeping through his unwarded walls. Grimmauld had always been too hushed—he realized this the day he’d moved in on the first of June. His magic had eaten through the wards like a termite in a growing forest during the first night. 

The humming echoes coming from the sleepy streets had lulled him into a half-decent night's rest. 

“Harry,” Hermione’s voice is faint, subdued even, in the softness of their dying conversation. “You can talk to me—to us. It doesn’t… we can…” Her words drift off on a shaky breath. 

“I know,” he reminds her, despite the fact that she was the one reminding him every few days. “Ron’s expecting you.” 

She wavers, moving to drop her books back into her boundless bag, “Please, Harry.” He walks her to the door, stopping himself for shutting the door in her face at her brief touch to his arm. “Wednesday?” 

“Wednesday,” he smiles. 

When the door closes, he trudges to his room, undrinken glass of juice forgotten and his tiredness restored. He still had a headache. 

* * *

_9 June, 1998_

In the third year of his lower school, Harry liked to draw. He liked to draw so much, in fact, that his teacher suggested an art career pathway to Petunia and Vernon. This included paying extra for afterschool art classes. 

He showed up with a disreputable purple bruise on his cheek the next day. Vernon told him that it was real art, and his teacher never mentioned it again. Nonetheless, up until Hogwarts, his cupboard was littered by the very drawings he‘d been forbidden to draw. 

Harry supposed he’d outgrown his habit of doing things he wasn’t meant to be doing. 

“You’re saying you’re not able to do it?” The predicament with his magic wasn’t a pleasant tale—he was bursting in it, and the consequences of that were becoming all too real. Little amounts were straining in a way that meant he’d neglected to find a middle ground between too much and too little.

He pocketed his wand, turning away from the vibrating parasite that had attached itself in the heart of the Ministry. Below The Fountain of Magical Brethren was an ever growing magical mass, overtaking the seventh level by the hour. 

_Bond magic,_ they'd told him. To destroy it, he would have to destroy the binds that sealed the contract. It couldn’t be spelled away. It couldn’t be removed by hand.

It was a disturbance in the Ministry. “I can’t destroy it.” 

From Hermione, he learned that the longer bond magic sits, the stronger it becomes. _Like wine,_ she said. They wanted him to dismantle a three hundred year old bond. 

They didn’t tell him why the contract was awakened, or what the contract did. They did tell him that he had orders to destroy it. 

Chief Warlock Paris Nixon’s face didn’t betray whatever emotions he had bubbling beneath his skin. “I see.” It was his eyes that told Harry everything. 

Twice had he failed to destroy the disturbance; this had been his third try. Nixon looked disgusted at him, flicking his hand out and shooing him away. “You are discharged.” 

He turned from him, ignoring his presence, and calling in other groups of Unspeakables and Potioneers. Harry had no trouble walking away from him either. 

The Atrium was an oddity at the moment too. There were no wizards or witches filling every nook and cranny of the floor. There were no magical creatures mixed in the magical crowd of witches and wizards. There were no politicians, no Auror’s, nothing. 

Except, there were two Unspeakables. Between their arms was a ragdoll like figure, dragged along in whatever top secret escapades Unspeakables kept themselves to. 

And he would have moved along, really, he would have. Gone to the floo and ate a few bites of the delicious meal he knew Kreacher had cooked up. 

But the person twitched, his dirty platinum blond hair flopping away from his face and Harry couldn’t move along. 

“Malfoy?” It’s horrifying how someone as posh as Malfoy falls so low. Very much horrifying, so much that he’s not allowing himself find it within him to pity him. 

It makes a large part of him gratified with horror. 

One of the hooded silhouettes looks at him and jolts. _“Oh!_ Mr. Potter, I didn’t see you there!” Their faces are covered by a distorting spell, but the other one on the left stares at him with the place where his face is supposed to be. 

There were pieces of soot coating Malfoy’s hair—his locks were dangling to his throat. His face wasn’t visible. Yet the way his grey-tinged skin stretched taut against his sharp bones said enough. 

Malfoy’s veins are pressed to his skin—and they’re tinged white. 

The figure on the left tugs Malfoy forward, his body dropping from the help of one person to pulling his body up. Harry’s eyes trail on the stained baggy standardized garments, and the other Unspeakable comes forward to pull the drooping side back up. 

They disappear into the lift before Harry speaks another word. He’s glad they’re gone, because now he’s unable to keep himself from laughing out loud. 

* * *

He ends up telling Hermione about his encounter. She doesn’t find the story as funny as he does, but she seems amused by his amusement. 

“There is one thing I couldn’t quite understand,” he hums, reaching for the bronze dessert platter that a begrudged Kreacher had to bring out. He could hear him in the corner with his mutterings of ‘mudblood’ and ‘blood traitors’. “Why was he glowing?”

“Glowing?” Hermione gave a short laugh, dusting her hands of bread crumbs from her fingers. They both ignore Kreacher’s anguished cry. “That’s a new one.”

“His veins were silver. Or white, I suppose,” he insists, bringing a delicious cauldron cake to his mouth. “He looked like a vampire, no, _no,_ he looked _skint!”_ Harry cackles, throwing his head back in a laugh and near choking on his cake. 

Hermione had her lips pressed together, shaking her head in disappointed mirth. “Awful.” She pops a gum drop in her mouth. “Just terrible.”

He does end up having to spit out his cake from how close he was to choking on it. 

“You know,” Hermione starts off a while later when they’ve both calmed down and are sitting down by the burning fireplace. He’s soaking in the warmth on his back when she begins speaking. “Ron misses you.”

Harry opened his eyes. “Does he now?” The fire doesn’t seem so bright anymore. 

“Harry,” Hermione exhales, the papers of her notebook rustling against her fidgeting hands. “You promised you’d talk.” 

“I will,” he replies, sitting up, tugging down the sleeves of his sweater. 

She reaches forward to brush his hair aside, “You’ll do it ahead of the brunch?” 

“Alright.” He closes his eyes once again, focusing on the sound of the fire beginning for the second time that day. 

* * *

“Potter?” A voice to his left called, and Harry gives a low swear. He circles around, blue giraffe rattle still in his hand. Auror Ackern gives him an icy once over. “Didn’t know you shopped here.” 

He eyed the toy in Harry’s fingers, causing him to cough, placing it back on the colorful rack. “I don’t, for the most part, sir.” 

“No need for the formality, Potter,” Ackern lifted up his shopping cart full of toys, nappies, and baby wipes. “You’ve got a good eye. Mind helping me out? My boy hates everything I buy.” 

“Uh, I shouldn’t, er, I’m not,” he stuttered out, flinching but leaving once he was pulled along into Acken’s muscled hold. “...brilliant.” 

“Seems we’ve both got little brats to take care of, kid,” Ackern gazes at him from the side of his eye. Harry fidgets until he turns away. “Not much of a grown man yourself though. Still got a long ways away from getting there.”

“There’s no kid, Mr. Ackern.” There weren’t many individuals in _Babsy’s Finest_ , but he didn’t want to see headlines screaming about his secret love child tomorrow morning. 

Acken gets a disgusted expression on his face. “What’re you, then, a pervert or something?” 

Harry’s heart stops. “No, no, I have a godson!” 

“A godson, aye?” His hands snatch a medium sized stuffie from his own cart. “Give ‘em this.” He holds out a stuffed dragon—it’s purple, a pattern of green and yellow sitting beneath its underbelly. 

Harry takes it, and says, “Thank you.” He notices a commotion of whispering and yelling coming from outside. At the shop doors, workers are pushing reporters away, but their tenacious and armed with quills and cameras.

There’s a flash, “Mr. Potter! Please make a statement about the Pureblood Masacre!”

“As Saviour of the Wizarding world, how do you feel about the Malfoy Family’s demise and the passing of nearly 100 accused Death Eaters?”

“Tell us about—!” 

Another store worker pulls him towards the back of the store while Auror Ackern goes to help out the workers attempting to soothe the racket. He’s shoved out the store’s exit; there’s no farewell or goodbye. 

Teddy got his toy, at least. 

* * *

Harry hadn’t done it yet. 

The brunch was next Thursday, and all he had done was visit his godson and pace around his sitting room. A recent habit, he found, that had earned him a cranky lecture from Kreacher when he’d run through the new rug. 

Renovation came easy—he picked out new colors, new furniture, and new wallpaper. He would help Kreacher pull off the walls and scrub at the floorboards. Even if the elf grumbled and happened to be nowhere near the gratefulness any other person would have been at. 

He didn’t mind it though, because the elf’s presence was a comforting familiarity that he almost never got these days. 

He hadn’t contacted Ron since the day he moved out in a rush of half-closed baggage and a flurry of anxiety. It was madness, and he’d grown himself a foundation of fury, dejection, and eventual vacantness. 

Soon renovation replaced whatever development he’d started before. Harry didn’t mind it, because Hermione promised them they’d get over it even when she visited him less and less these days. 

At the moment, his mind was elsewhere and the sense that he had left was about to be put to the test in his mission to sort through his mail. The little wards that he did have blocked any unknown letters and senders that he didn’t key to the barrier. 

There were three piles: Family, Press, and Official. It was rare to receive more than one letter in the Official pile per week. This week he received none. 

Press had four letters: _Witch Weekly, The Prophet, Phantom Gossip,_ and _Star News._ He’s never given an interview; he will never give an interview. 

The press at best wanted to be entertained to the maximum. His story, his thoughts, his legacy: simple gossip to be whispered on the sheets of magazines and newspapers. 

In Family, he usually receives an exact number of 3 letters from Andromeda once a week, and a couple from Mrs. Weasley depending on if she was feeling her particular sadness at the fact he that he only visited a single time that month

He had four letters in the Family pile today; he went to place them in the spelled woven basket underneath his desk. It was where he kept all of his Family letters. An object had gotten jammed in the cover, however. 

It poked out from the hinge, crinkled and white. When he pulled at it, the jutting object didn’t budge. Harry shook the tiny triangle, succeeding in pulling it out of the hinge but forcing the lid open in the process. 

Piles of white envelopes spilled from the basket, slapping at the floor and overflowing from the confined space. It stopped pouring over after a while.

* * *

“Bleh!” Harry screeched, falling over onto the floor and clutching the spot where the three month old poked him with his slobbery toy dragon. 

Harry had tried to take it from his chewing mouth, but the boy had let out an offended cry thereby sending him into panic mode. Teddy seemed smug afterwards, sucking on the tail for added effect. 

He rolled around for the dramatics, and, ah, yes, there it was. 

That twinkling laugh Teddy had learned how to emit this month. It made looking like a lunatic worth it. 

Teddy was on his back, tiny foot in his tiny hand, smiling using all of his gumminess. He used the wet knuckle that had been in his mouth a few minutes prior to point at Harry and coo an unintelligible sentence. 

“Say ‘Harry’, Teddy,” Harry sat back up and tickled the infant on his toes. 

He squealed, squirming around, _“Ah! Ah!”_

They played around—meaning Harry behaved like a fool to make Teddy laugh—for another twenty minutes until Andromeda called for him to be changed and fed. 

While she heats up his bottle, Harry goes to work changing Teddy. 

“Merlin, Teddy,” Harry coughed, casting a smell blocking charm on his nose. He leaned back, hurrying to drop the used nappy into the garbage tin beside the changing tables leg. “What is she feeding you, by Merlin…” 

He hears Teddy cackling from in front of him, and he turns his head to glower at the baby, “Oh, ha, ha. Laugh it up while you’re still able, Teds.” 

The glower didn’t last long, a grin twitching onto his face till the baby lifted his leg up to chew on his foot. 

_“Teddy, no!”_

He ends up having to spray down and scrub the changing mat once he wipes Teddy and puts him into new nappy. He’s never seen so much baby poop in his life. 

Andromeda prefers to clean Teddy’s room and his accessories by hand rather than with magic. “You never know what it’s going to leave behind,” she tells him after giving him a step-by-step guide to washing the baby’s sheets. 

It’s better than his first experience with changing Teddy. He’d seemed like such a calm baby the entire time, but as Harry had gotten his nappy off, he sprayed all over his shirt. 

Out in the sitting room, Andromeda’s reading Teddy one of those thin storytelling books he sees in the public library. Harry takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and listening to the baby gibberish he always babbles while she reads. 

It’s wonderful—it’s home. 

His initial impression was intimidation; he’d never make it inside the cottage, standing there in fear of what he could do and what he could not. This was his tenth visit this month. 

He’d started coming inside on the third. 

“That’s right, Teddy. They lived happily ever after…”

Maybe he could keep coming. 

* * *

_25 June, 1998_

By the day of the brunch, all Harry could manage was a half-assed letter of salutations. He didn’t attempt again when the letter was sent back the next day. 

He told Hermione this, and, as any other time he told her something she would find disappointing in a moderate sense, her lips pursed and she turned away. She still asked him if he were coming, because _Molly would be sad if you weren’t._

He’d migrated to the garden once he apparated there, bypassing all of the desolate cheerfulness being thrown at him. George hadn’t been able to attend, Hermione told him. 

She had been snatched up by Mrs. Weasley the moment she stepped in the Burrow. Mrs. Weasley’d approached weary and tired looking, sweat clinging to her brow as she wiped her hands on a dirty washcloth. “The meat needs marinating, Hermione. Be a dear and help me?” 

Lemons had taken residence inside Hermione’s clenched lips, her displeasure visible but pointless at Mrs. Weasley’s insistence. 

Each time he passes Mrs. Weasley, he tells her, “I’ll help too, Mrs. Weasley.” She never fails to reply, “It’s nothing to worry a hair on your head about, dear.”

Fleur and Ginny were busy chopping up vegetables by the time he’d made it to the backyard. 

Mr. Weasley was tweaking at a muggle toaster. Bill was speaking to Percy about Fleur’s recent promotion at Gringotts. Charlie and Ron were no were to be seen. 

He squatted down by the start of the small forest, a wandering chicken passing by him with a confused squall. The blue flowers that had always littered the Burrow’s grass were dying; wilted. 

Perhaps he should come back after all, he mused. Harry supposed it would make Hermione more happy. Glancing back at the kitchen window, he catches the gaze of a familiar silhouette. Ginny hesitates, but waves at him, a small smile adorning her wary face. 

He hurries back to his flower, tense, hating the aching feeling in his chest that comes with every look that finds itself in her direction. They needed time, he tells himself. 

Just a little bit of time, and then things would go back to normal and he’d no longer doubt himself. The flower petals he’d been caressing seems to die a little more at the thought. 

Charlie, when he scans up from his weeds, is setting up the tables and chairs out front beside Ron. Their tiny forms were hauling the first half of the rectangular table they’d be sitting at. The lumpy hilltop he strolled on had quite the height advantage on the swaying Burrow.

There was no point in putting the tent up, as the clouds were gone and the sun was out. It was a blessing, coming from the howling storms and the murky grey clouds to this. 

Mrs. Weasley calls out for them to come eat not even thirty minutes later. The long table is set up using eleven seats and plates, yet there were eight people present. 

He went to sit next on Hermione’s right side, overlooking the empty chair and plate beside Ron. “Hey, there.” Ron stretches tight beside her, acknowledging Harry’s presence in a soft grunt. 

Hermione’s eyes shoot to the chair beside Ron, and then back up to Harry. He fiddles with his utensils. The silence goes on for a couple more minutes with Ron and Harry determined to ignore each other. 

“I heard the School Board’s letting previous students redo their years,” Hermione comments, shoveling some baked chicken and greens onto his and Ron’s plates. “They’re introducing a temporary concept called ‘Eighth Years’ for this year.” 

“And you think we should go?” Harry questioned. The bread rolls were just as fluffy; a buttery goodness that hadn’t known he’d missed. 

“Of course,” she responds, “This is our last chance to finish our education.” She goes on to prattle about the benefits of taking their N.E.W.T.s, and, for a second, Ron and him share a dry look. 

Ron twists his head away after that, his overgrown mops of red hair shielding his eyes. “About that.” He’s not staring at Hermione anymore either. 

“Kingsley says I don’t need my N.E.W.T.s to start Auror Training,” he tells them. There’s no pause between his words and the sound of Mrs. Weasley’s hands slapping against the table. 

“You’re taking your N.E.W.T.s, Ronald,” she orders, pointing her finger at him and taking a no nonsense tone. “And I don’t want to hear another word from your mouth about it!”

Ron sits up in alarm. “But Mum—!”

“I said not another word!” Mrs. Weasley pours some gloss brown gravy onto her mash potatoes. Oddly enough, the actions make her appear more angry. “You’ve worked too hard to not finish your education, young man.” 

Hermione opens her mouth to say something, but she’s rushed over. “The School Board has been gracious enough to give you another chance, and I won’t have you wasting it away on some Auror priming.” 

The table goes silent, the clacking of cutlery to glass giving way to the paternal storm that is Molly Weasley. Ron’s fists are shaking beside his unused fork and spoon.

His shoulders slump down, though slow and unhurried, from the soft pressure of Hermione’s hands rubbing against his forearms. She scoots closer to Ron, whispering soft words to him. 

Harry stares at his food, listening to the hesitant voices starting to fill the table again. The glistening chicken was unappetizing, even as his stomach gurgled for it. 

Charlie begins to ramble on about his newest dragon, Mrs. Weasley clutching onto each detail, a worried expression taking over her face.

What he could never bring himself to see was this disarray of order the war had caused. This shining fury had embedded itself, deep and shallow, into the chains of the Weasley family. 

It had suffocated him then, and each time he’d go circles around the obvious. It hadn’t been his friend that had driven him away, yet it had been a valid factor. It had been the air—the asphyxiation of grief and heartache. 

He couldn’t feel comfortable in the Burrow. It didn’t seem like home anymore; he hadn’t missed this sorrow. 

“Our newest hatchling is the most beautiful thing— _Merlin!_ ” 

The clouds overtake the sun, a dark shade of black falling over their faces. Ginny holds her hands over her head, awaiting the furious pelts of rain that were about to spill from the sky. Hermione’s wand hand moves at a rapid pace, and just as the first rain—

Red envelopes begin to fall from the grey clouds, one landing in Harry’s chicken soup, two on Hermione's lap, and three more scattered throughout the tabletop. 

The hoard of owls left just as fast as they came, a dull brightness seeping back over the group that was the sunshine. 

“What in the hell?” Ginny muttered, peeling the envelope from off of her baked chicken. 

The seal was darker than any storm that could have been. 

**The Insufficiency of Magical Blood Act (Clause 223, Paragraph C)** \- 

_This proposed rule would require all unmarried and legal residents of Britain to engage in the Wedlock Ball in an effort to regain a secure and safeguarded wizarding population. Female residents over the age of 28 are not urged to attend—male residents over the age of 35 are not urged to attend._

_This proposed rule will establish a list of healthy and fertile citizens whose marriages will be chosen at an entirely arbitrary ruled raffle aiming for high compatibility and reproduction—the chosen contributors have an extended option to choose their partner for this law. Those who do not choose shall be participating at the will of magic and chance._

_The provisions of this rule will ensure a high rate of birth, thereby repopulating the community that has taken a fifty percent, and over, decline._

“This… this is insanity!” Hermione throws down the papers, while Ginny continues to read hers in tight clenched hands. “This can’t be legal!” 

Molly’s thrown herself into the grips of Arthor's arms, and Percy is cursing. He’s cursing and pulling the letter closer to his face as though he’s in a position to dissect the exact reason for its existence through his fogged reading glasses. 

He can’t though, and Harry finds he can’t read his paper anymore. The words blur into black lines and blobs, like someone’s gone and snatched his glasses off alongside the reveal of the news. 

He thinks he sees Ginny’s face trembling—he thinks he sees a haze of a person huddled on the ground squeezed tight into themselves. But it’s background noise, and background noise can only be the sound of glass breaking and Ginny’s face crumbling into tears. 

Or maybe that’s him trembling. Maybe that’s him seeing things and crying.

Dots surpass his vision— _reds, purples, greens, yellows._ None of them are good colors, but his heart is cheering bright, magic beating in wild thrums with it. 

Hermione reaches for him, but his breath sticks in his throat and his head hurts and—

Harry disappears in a swirl of green. 

* * *

_28 June, 1998_

Hermione tries to enter Grimmauld several times before she figures out Harry has spelled her out of the wards. He doesn’t leave his room, but Kreacher has become much more solemn. 

Kreacher doesn’t grumble when he brings his food to his room, or when he gets crumbs in the covers. 

He wakes up at daybreak, panting in his sweat encrusted sheets with a vibration just beneath his skin. It crawls in his bones like a burrowing terminate; he twitches, body jolting up into an arch from his magic pulling him forward. 

A choked whimper; and his torso is thrusted into the roasting air. 

Shocks shoot from his fingers and toes to the center of his chest. His stinging flesh is numb within the waves of the aftershocks.

His torso tugs up in the air, once more, twice more, and— _he falls_. He slumps down onto the grey sheets in quick lurches, curling into himself with every agitated twitch. The room crackled red around him, shifting into a yellowish orange hue.

Harry collapses into a cold slumber by the time the first ray of sunlight pokes through his curtains. His room is soon filled in silvery golds and a purple blend that is the illumination of the sun. 

And the illumination of the sun can only be the tears sliding down his face and a fallen boy screaming.

* * *

Hermione discovers a way into Grimmauld. “You will not go on like this,” she tells him while Kreacher cowers behind Harry in the surprise at her sudden appearance. “I won’t let you go on like this.” 

It’s not even ten yet, and he’s already got a headache. It seems he gets headaches in more frequent intervals then he used to. Combined with the phantom sores that are appearing all throughout his body, he is in too much pain to deal with Hermione’s pestering. 

He doesn’t even want to read the howling newspapers coming in by the dozen every hour. 

“How did you get in?” Hermione doesn’t address his question, sliding further into his dining room. 

She drops her purse on the countertop, “The new law is legal—almost too legal. We’ll have to make a loophole ourselves then.” She hesitates in pulling out her books, looking up at him from her eyelashes. “Ron and I…”

“We’re deciding whether or not we want to pair up for a union,” she sighs, slumping forward onto her cupped hands. Her face is obscure, but hears the crack in her voice, “I suppose it would be the most logical decision, but…”

She looks up at him. 

Out of the three of them, Harry had never doubted that Hermione would be the most level headed one in their group. She would be the best, and he loved her for her even when she wasn’t.

At times, however, logic should be thrown out the window so that the heart can take control. 

“I don’t,” she whispers. “I don’t think I’m capable of doing this, Harry. I know—I know that you’re afraid, but so am I. You cannot lock yourself out from the world when I’m a part of it.” 

Hermione pushes back her dull hair, bloodshot eyes connecting to his red rimmed ones. “We’ve always gone through the craziest shit together, you know? Why would we be stupid enough to stop now?”

If he wasn’t so tired, he’d flinch from the sound of her cursing. It wasn’t a usual occurrence, he knows this.

He’s never seen Hermione so broken down and defeated; not during the Horcrux Hunt, not during the obliviation of her parents, not during Ron’s abandonment. 

He keeps doing this to her—keeps dragging her down with him in whatever pity party or suicide mission he finds himself running into. She’ll get tired of it one day, he knows this, and there will be no one but himself to blame. 

“Pretty stupid,” Harry agrees, spooning his scrambled eggs aside on his plate. Her smile is watered down from its usual gleaming state, and he notices her wiping tears away from her eyes. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault, Harry.” She sets three different thick volumes on the table in front him. “Just… just try to speak to me about these things.” 

Hermione pushes the middle one to him: _Ministry Rules and Protocol: Volume 17, 1995 Edition._ “You’re not alone anymore—remember that for me, alright?”

Before she leaves, she hesitates. “At times, I wish it would be you.” His mouth gapes, and she’s gone ahead of his dumbfounded look melting into more confusion. He takes out a recent letter from his basket once the tingles of shock have faded. 

_Harry,_

_Let’s talk. Hog’s Head; 2pm, tomorrow._

_Ron_

* * *

Harry finds that Hogsmeade is shiner; the materials used during the Hogsmeade clean-up was the cause of the pristine condition it was now in. 

Yet he can’t be the judge of cleanliness when his judgement could be clouded by darkening of the late afternoon sky. 

His feet dragged on the glossy cobblestone street path, quiet without the bustling buyers and locals that lived there. Most of them were doing their best to assist in the physical damage done to the castle. 

The difference between the rest of Hogsmeade and Hog’s Head was laughable. Mold had taken over the already unpleasant building, alongside the moss and other plantoids making a home on the bricks. 

Again, no one ventured into Hog’s Head. His eyes scanned the near-empty bar. No one except a head of red hair seated at a small circular wooden table that looked to be on its last breath. 

Ron sees him come in and waves him over using his wooden mug. “Didn’t know if you’d make it.” Harry nods and perches on a stool placed in front of the other. “Hope you don’t mind.” 

He points to the additional drink. In his nervousness, Harry grabs it in relief and downs a gulp. 

Only to spit it back into his cup, a strangled cough being his sole reaction to the burn in his throat. “What is that?” 

“Firewhiskey,” Ron sips his own alcohol without trouble. “Figured we’d need it.” 

“Um, thanks,” he pushes the drink away. They sit in heavy silence, unbroken by the sounds of Ron’s swallows or Harry’s rising trepidation. “I—!”

“You—!”

They pause, staring at each other just as they begin exploding into booming laughter, the nerves strung tight in his neck watering down in remission. Harry’s still chuckling when Ron gives him a grin. “Alright, then?”

Harry’s smile fades, and he looks down, licking his dry lips. There are plenty of things he could say to that, the obvious one being _‘no’_. They haven’t even spoken about anything, in fact, they’ve been here for no less than ten minutes. 

He knows there are things Ron should be saying that he isn’t, things that Harry hasn’t said to Ron that he knows he should. 

But images of crying Hermione pile on his conscious, so the words he end up saying are:

“Yeah, Ron, we’re alright.” 

* * *

Hermione’s ecstatic to hear about his and Ron’s apparent reconciliation. It’s a feat she’s been trying to force since the day their fall out happened. 

A twinge of heat—something irate and inflamed and rough—sparks awake in his chest, stomped away by the smile he gives her. It hasn’t even been two hours since he’d left Hogsmeade. 

“You and Ron’s talking has been long since overdue, Harry,” she tells him, digging her spoon into her Raspberry and Chocolate flavored ice cream. “You never told me what you two were bickering about, but I’m glad it’s over.”

Harry doesn’t say anything so she continues on, “Ron’s mouth is loose, Harry, you honestly should take what he says lightly. He can be a brute, but he doesn’t mean anything he says.”

The heat starts up again, and he coughs. “I’m a bit tired, ‘Mione.” 

Hermione stops mid-rant to stare at him wide eyed and concerned, “Are you unwell? You did look rather peaky when I came in.” 

“No, no, none of that,” he assures her, spooning his own Apple Crumble ice cream slop around in its pint size cup. “Just tired.” 

She gives him a once-over, standing up to throw her empty cup away. “If you say so.” 

He beams around the ever-growing tightness clawing its way into his throat; his head. It makes him want to open his mouth and say things he’d never say if this horrible fever wasn’t taking over. 

“Fire call me tomorrow, Harry. I’m positive I’ve found something this time.” 

He drags himself to bed and falls into a deep slumber, dreaming of _purples_ and _golds_ and _silvers._ His skin vibrates from the familiar magic that wraps itself around him in a warm cocoon. 

He’s still dead to the world by the time he receives a letter from Kingsley. He reads it the next afternoon, half-coherent in his sleep deprived and fatigued gaze. 

_Dear Harry,_

_The MOM requests your attendance regarding the recent release of the 223 Clause._

_Head Auror,_

_Kingsley Shacklebolt_

His toast almost slides out of his mouth—what more did they want from him? Hadn’t he fulfilled his duties as Prime Wizard? They couldn’t ask anything else of him if they didn’t want to break all sorts of laws. 

Not that doing illegal activities had bothered them before but still. It was the thought that counted. 

Why did they need his presence for a bloody marriage law? Harry freezes, toast in fact falling from his teeth at the horror mounting his heart.

 _No, no, no,_ his mind screams, because they couldn’t, right? They weren’t going to attempt to marry him off to make the untruthful images of ‘223 Marriage Is A 100% Happiness Guarantee!’ try to seem more real. They didn’t have that type of jurisdiction, none of that power. 

His anger evaporated to fear at the raspy voice tickling his ears. 

“Master Harry be receiving another letter,” Kreacher spits, handing Harry a crinkled letter that almost lands in his eggs from how fast his wrinkled hand swings it. 

He disappears as soon as comes, slinking back to whatever corners of Grimmauld he entertains himself at. Harry doesn’t even get the time to thank him like he knows Hermiome would demand he should. 

Harry’s grip on his wand loosens, knuckles jerky in the fast race to get to it. It was a letter from Ron. He vanishes the envelope, skimming down the small paragraph all while remembering Hermione’s request for a fire call. 

_Harry,_

_Everything’s gone to shit. Convince the Head of the Unification Committee to set back their deadline placed on date of birth._

_Ron_

The scribbles in the second sentence weren’t as hurried and sloppy as the first, and was, without a doubt, the delicate scribble of Hermione’s handwriting. Harry had no clue as to what Ron was talking about though. 

_Talk to the Unification Committee?_ He thumbed the crumpled paper. 

The Unification Committee was dead set on upholding the law, meaning no one was exempt from their rule. It’d be silly to think a flip of his hair could change that.

He turned to Kingsley’s letter in his other hand. 

Today, it seemed, he was making a trip to the Ministry. 

Yet getting into the Ministry wasn’t as smooth as he’d thought it would be. Upon flooing into the Atrium, he was trampled back into it by a crowd of overzealous fans. 

Harry then attempted to floo directly into Kingsley’s private office, but was spat back out into the Auror Department. 

Which wasn’t so bad. Leaving out the bit where seventeen— _yes, seventeen—_ Auror’s stopped him wondering when he was going to start his Auror training, it was the definite lesser evil. 

He unclenched his grinding teeth and knocked on the plated gold _Kingsley Shacklebolt_ door tag. The door fell open under his fist. 

Kingsley was seated behind a wide maple desk that stretched to the ends of the room. He couldn’t take a look at the tabletop because it was smothered by files and mountains of, what Harry assumed were, paperwork. 

He was holding a vanilla folder in his left hand and scribbling onto a small pile in his right. He glanced up, motioning for Harry to come in.

Harry closes the door behind him, and Kingsley whirls his wand to move a few stacks of papers over so they are visible to one another. “Why did you call me here, Kingsley?” 

“I’ll be blunt then,” He shakes the vanilla folder, sliding it across and past the makeshift opening. “I’ve been informed that the Union Committee has decided to give you immunity,”

The air from his lungs is squeezed out of him in one shuddering breath. “Immunity… but…” What about Ron and Hermione? What about the others? 

“Inside this folder is a punch card. You are to hand them that instead of your Union papers when you go become registered.” 

_It’s not fair._

“Harry,” Kingsley murmurs just as Harry’s head falls down into his trembling hands. “No one will consider you selfish if you take it.” 

Harry shakes his head. “Is.. is there a way to get the Weasley’s immunity as well? Hermione?” 

Kingsley goes quiet. “They were denied.” 

_It’s not fair._

“I can’t—I can’t take it,” Harry shakes his head, pushing himself up to push the folder away. “Why do I get it? Why does it have to be me?” 

“If anyone deserves it, Harry, it would be you.” Kingsley picks up the folder again and holds it out. “Ask Hermione or Ron. They would say the same; anyone would say the same.”

Harry shakes his head, dead-set on taking rejecting it but Kingsley pushes it into his grasp. He stares at it, and it feels warm in his hands. “And the Unification Committee allowed this?” 

“They didn’t have a choice; they were outvoted by the Wizamagot.” Kingsley’s words are interrupted by two timid knocks on his door. “Yes?”

Shuffling. “The Wizamagot wishes to speak with you, sir.” 

He sighs, standing up and triggering the slight tremors in his paper towers. His hands clamp down on Harry’s shoulders, offering words he can’t hear and then he’s alone. 

The paper in his hand vibrates at his gaze before shoving it in his jacket and leaves. He takes several measures to make sure he doesn’t run into any workers of the Auror Department. 

The Burrow is a mess, redheads scurrying in and out of the makeshift home in bouts of chaos. He runs into Mrs. Weasley whose shaky fingers squeeze him into a tight hug.

“Oh, Harry, are you alright, dear?” 

Harry blinks. “Fine.” He tilts his head around her shoulder to try and catch a glimpse of the nearest person scrambling down the stairs. “Er, Mrs. Weas—Molly, have you—!”

Mrs. Weasley pulls back at an abrupt speed. “Harry,” she says, hands caressing his cheeks, tired eyes checking him over. “It’s wrong of me to ask you this, but please do your best to watch over Ginny.” 

She pats his stunned face once more, twice, and then she’s gone in a flurry of hand sewn clothing. 

He doesn’t find Ron and Hermione, not in their room or the kitchen or the entire house for that matter. 

He does find Ginny sitting against the bath of the smallest bathroom inside the Burrow. All of the hair products are squished inside a cabinet spelled stuck above the wall of the tub. 

Someone’s blue rag is dangling above her head, threatening to fall any minute. He looks down from the rag to her hands that cover her face. 

“Gin?” he calls out, taking small measured steps further inside. She doesn’t answer. 

Biting his lips, he shifts. “Have you seen Ron and Hermione?” Moments pass until she decides to reply to him. 

“They left to the Unification Committee once Kingsley said you were with him,” Ginny looks up when they both hear Mrs. Weasley’s calling for her. 

She jolts up, wiping her face while running down the stairs of the house. He stands and watches her wobbling figure, uncertain and concerned, before deciding to follow her. 

They end up panting the backyard garden. The sounds of yelling blur into the background, and Harry begins to make out her red-rimmed face through his heaving breaths. “Alright?” 

Ginny shakes her head, huffing and falling into a patch of Lily’s. “No.” Her hands shake against the grass; she brings them to her face. 

_“_ Under no circumstances can I be ‘alright’, Harry, because I’m not fucking alright.” Her hands are running through her hair, rubbing at her puffy face and runny eyes. 

Harry feels awkward at her answer, and his hands lift, unsure if he should comfort her or leave. 

He ends up letting them dangle by his sides at her murderous look. 

Harry sits, careful and cautious, near a couple of orchids. A familiar yellow-tinted paper is thrown into his lap, however, too unfamiliar for him to comprehend its whereabouts.

He glances back up Ginny in confusion. “What’s this?” 

She doesn’t make a move to answer him, so he grasps it in his hands and takes a closer look. The new guidelines for the Blood Act must have been mailed out during his conversation with Kingsley. 

There, in highlighted yellow, was the cause of everyone’s grief: 

  * Citizens _must_ be 17 and older—you will not be allowed to participate under 17. The deadline for age participation is _10 August, 1998._



“They’ve set back the age requirement,” she said. “It was the 17th, but then they knocked it down the 10th this morning right under our bloody noses.” 

The folder in his pocket burns like the heat of the sun, but he doesn’t reach for it. No, he keeps his eyes on Ginny and endures the sting of guilt that locks him still. 

“Mum thinks that we’ll be partners for this, and it started a huge argument between us. I don’t want children, at least, not right now,” Ginny’s fingers crush the pale yellow orchids by his feet. “The Harpies offered me a spot on their team this year.”

“That’s—!”

“A pregnancy lasts about nine months, Harry,” she looks back up at him, flower crushed between her hands and misery in her eyes. “Do you believe they’ll wait for me? With plenty of other players to choose from?” 

Quidditch was a fast-paced sport, far too dangerous for anyone in their pregnancy or postpartum stages. Ginny would never be able to play even if they did get her a spot, because then there would be a child thrown into the situation.

“Quidditch is my life, and if I can’t even play it, then what’s the point?” She bites her lip, looking off into the distance at the sight of Mrs. Weasley sobbing into her husband's chest. 

Harry closes his eyes, and this time doesn’t shy away from the prickling of the folder burning his thigh. 

* * *

Nobody finds out until it’s splashed across the Prophet. 

**GINNY WEASLEY RECEIVES EXEMPTION**

_Tuesday, 30 June, 1998_

_London, England_

_By Rodney Tillens_

_Today, we have witnessed a show of favoritism in the halls of our Ministry._

_How can they enforce their hand if they give out favours and allow preferential treatment such as this to slide? While others have fought and lost their right to choose their hand in marriage, she is given back her freedom._

_Readers of the Prophet, I demand justice. Ginny Weasley, daughter of Molly Weasley and Authur Weasley, will not be taking part in the Insufficiency of Magical Blood Act._

_No other has been allowed this treatment, but she, of all witches, has gotten them to sway. We, of the Prophet, demand justice._

_(cont. page 09)_

The Prophet article slaps down beside his plate of chicken, corn, and scallop potato leftovers from Mrs. Weasley. Harry takes a quick scan of the headline, pausing in carving his chicken breasts into smaller portions to point his knife at Hermione. “It’s a load of rubbish.” 

Hermione crosses her arms and huffs. 

Licking the Buffalo sauce off of his lips, he glances at Ron. “You all know how the Prophet is, they can never stop printing this… this type of drivel.” 

“We’ve all spoken to Ginny, mate.” 

“She told you then?” he sighs, setting down his utensils and giving them his full attention. 

“How could you do something like that, Harry,” Hermione uncrosses her arms to step forward. Her face twists in frustration. “How could Ginny even allow you to do something like that?” 

“Why didn’t you talk to us first?” she ends her speech with her own sigh, dropping into the chair beside him. Kreacher grumbles, but goes to serve them their own plates as well at Harry’s pointed look. 

He takes his time too, making the decision to scrape the darkest chunks of chicken into Hermione’s plate. Hermione still gives him a thankful smile. “Thank you, Kreacher.” He grunts in aversion. 

Ron doesn’t take notice of the elf when he digs into his own soggy scallops. “Yeah, Harry, you should’ve told us.” A piece is stuck to the corner of his lips.

After giving Ginny the ticket, she left without any delayal to get it registered. She was photographed coming from the Union with her accepted registration clutched to her chest in joy. 

“I didn’t know I had to report everything to the two of you.” _You never respond to my letters_ , voice in his head whispers. He crushes it. 

“We’re not saying that,” Hermione disagrees, dabbing her face with the napkin Kreacher had been begrudged to throw—at—beside her plate. 

“Then what are you saying?” The dusty clock on the dining room wall ticks away the seconds it takes them to respond. At their silence, he leans back and sighs long and hard. “I just wanted to help her.”

Hermione nods, “And you did. She won’t have to be married—she'll never have to have carried a child by the end of her schooling.” She looked him in the eye. “But _you_ do.” 

His heart stutters, “I know—!”

“Harry, I’ve done all of the research that I can do; there’s nothing that can be done,” Hermione remarks, her gaze falling from his face to her hands. “We’ve all accepted that we don’t have much of a chance, and now it’s time for us to accept that you’ve been given a way out of this.”

“We want you to take it,” she smiles. There‘s a pause, and she side-eyes Ron, “ _We_ want you to take it.” 

Another pause while Ron focuses on his food, spoon scraping on his bare plate in high-pitched squeals. A blaring stamp sounds through the room, giving way to Ron’s rough inhale and garbled agreement. 

“Yeah,” he hissed, reaching under the table to rub his shin. “All of that, mate, you should do it.” He looks back up at Hermione, his morose seeking her approval, who pays him no mind to instead beam at Harry. 

Harry bites back his own smile. “Even if I had wanted to, Gin already registered it.” He thinks back to how her face looked at the realization she’d never get a chance to try for her dreams. “It wouldn’t be fair to take that away from her now that she’s got it. ” 

“It’s the Ministry, Harry,” Hermione reflects, standing to gather their plates—snatching Ron’s away, doing away all of his last minute attempts at a tug-of-war to nab the last slab of chicken. 

She waves her wand and, behind her, the door to the kitchens opens, a line of bobbing plates floating straight through it. Hermione pats Ron’s head in a display of fake consolation, but he laps it up. 

“Naturally, the papers were a simple symbol of your dispensation and _you_ are the literal exemption,” she points the end of her wand at him, emphasizing the ‘you.’ 

At his stare, she huffs and sets it down. 

Ron’s nose creases like he’s smelling something bad. “If they’re just a show, then why didn’t they reject Ginny’s exemption papers?” He glances between them both, unease building in his posture. “She showed them to me, and they’re verified.” 

Hermione inhales, “Harry, do you remember the day of…” Her hand twitches towards her wand on the table. “The Battle of Hogwarts. They snapped a picture of you and Ginny hugging by the gates?”

“Merlin’s saggy balls, it was so awful,” Ron groaned, sliding his elbows off the table and letting his head fall onto the table in one fluid motion. “They hounded the wards for weeks. We couldn’t even leave the house without reporters three inches up our—!”

“We don’t need a mental image, Ron,” Hermione interrupted, a tint of repulsion layering her face. 

Harry’s still sore about the way things had happened when that article and photo had been released. All it took was one look at him and Ginny and the accusations went flying at Godspeed. 

_“Are you and the youngest Weasley dating, Mr. Potter?”_

_“I heard from my friend’s sister-in-law’s godmother’s son Finnigan that they’re engaged to be married!”_

_“Well, my sources tell me and you’ve both just eloped in Africa with an elder Mage as your officiant, Mr. Potter. Is that true? Mr. Potter?_ H—!”

“Harry?” Hermione taps the dining table to gain his attention. He blinked, and she rolled her eyes. “I _said_ , I think they’re trying to coerce you into marrying Ginny.”

“And I said that it’s bullocks,” Ron repeated, “Why do they want Harry and Gin together? They’re not even together anymore!” Harry grimaces, and Ron sputters out a quick apology. 

Hermione shakes her head. “ _T_ _hink_ , will you? As of now, Harry and Ginny are considered one of the most influential couples in England.” Ron and Harry looked away from each other in their awkwardness to speed up the conversation. 

“With them endorsing the Ministry’s tripe, more wizards and witches will be inclined to rebel less.” And Harry does think, taking it in for a moment and coming to the conclusion that it makes enough sense. 

“It’s like... a two-in-one for them,” Harry realizes, sitting up at the prospect of the Ministry trying to, once again, force him to do their dirty work.

She nods. “They won’t have to worry about you, and they’ll have cooperative citizens as well.” 

“D'you think that’s why they pushed back the age deadline?” Ron mused, “It only passed Gin’s birthday by the skin of its teeth.” 

_Would the Ministry would go so low to have him in the palms of their hand,_ he thought. His mind flashed to Scrimgeour and he thinks _yes, perhaps they would dabble in foul play for a little advocacy._

“I reckon that,” Hermione shifts in her seat to nod at the envelope sitting on his counters. It’s Ministry seal wax was glinting in the light. He’d gotten it dropped into the wards the second Ron and Hermione apparated to the door, “will be your coercion.” 

* * *

Harry straightened his wizarding robes, shying away from the hard scrutiny of the Wizenmagot. The members were scarce at the moment, yet they’d granted him 2 of the 26 remaining to handle his session. 

“Er… good morning?” They’re homicidal auras intensified. 

The male counterpart of the duo was a short, lanky wizard who shook his head full of auburn colored hair in blatant disgust. He turned to the woman, “We’ve seemed to have wasted our time on this one.” 

She, taller than him, nodded and threw a brief frown in his direction. “Is there a particular reason you’ve called for this session or do you plan to sit there like a decapitated flobberworm.”

Consus Cockburn, the male, teetered at the insult, leaning up, body hung up onto the tips of his toes to reach her neck and whisper, albeit a poor whisper, “Good one, Lucina.” 

Her lips twitched, not acknowledging him with a verbal response, but he practically preened at the response. 

Harry coughed, clearing his throat and gathering their attention, “The letter that the Ministry addressed to me is the reason for this session.” Their faces went blank. Harry was beginning to grow annoyed with their rudeness. 

“I was called here to speak with you?” When they stayed silent, his frustration increased. 

“There’s no need for the hostile attitude, Mr. Potter. Cockburn and Mannings are babysitters, at best,” the Chief Warlock’s indifference filled the room, swallowing the Wizengamot members into a solid petrification. “That appears to be all that their person is good for.” They quivered. 

Paris Nixon waited a moment before turning away from them. “You are excused.” Both of them scurried out the door, letting the chambers slam shut and encase them both inside alone. 

“What a waste of magic,” he murmured, sliding into one of the seats and desks that circled around Harry. He placed a file marked HARRY POTTER CASE in bright red letters in front of him. 

“As you are aware, Ms. Ginerva Weasley was falsely verified at the Unification Committee. We are here to set that straight,” Nixon clarified, voice close to a purr in his confident sense of satisfaction. 

“You were not permitted to hand out your exemption notice, but you did so without authorization,” he pulled out a quill and twirled the feather across the printed letters on the file. “You’ve caused so much trouble for the Administrative Registration Department.”

The feather grazed his light brown cheek. “Mr. Potter, what do you believe would be the correct way to mend this problem?”

 _They think you’re going to choose Ginny again, Harry. You have to choose yourself this time._ Hermione’s words shoved their way through his head, becoming a postponed headache awaiting its release. 

He took a deep breath. “Nothing, sir. The pass is mine, and… and this time it should go to me.” They assured him Ginny understood, that they’d already spoken to her. He focused on his hands, blinking hard and pushing away the thoughts.

He wished they’d let him talk to her about this, but the idea was vetoed at the thought that he’d crumble from looking at her. 

Harry flinched at the quiet crack, lifting his head back up in time to take note of Nixon vanishing his previous quill’s remains. 

“Alright then,” he agreed, flipping open Harry’s file and pulling out the few papers wedged inside. He didn’t have the time to be surprised at Nixon’s swift willingness before those papers were held out to him. 

He hesitated, but at the impatient shove, he moved across the room and grabbed them. The first page was covered in anything that correlated to his and Ginny’s identifications. “What is this?”

_Harry Potter: Age, Sex, Gender, Wand, DOB…_

_Ginerva Weasley: Age, Sex, Gender, Wand, DOB..._

“What you asked for,” Nixon replied, waving a hand at the papers for Harry to flip the next page. “Because the pass is going to you, Ms. Ginerva’s partner is being pre-prepared by the Unification Committee.”

A photo of Ginny was beside another featuring a wizard who appeared to be in his mid-thirties. Parts of his hair were already graying, and his beady black eyes seemed to be pounded into his tight, wrinkled forehead. 

The percentage **85%** was below them in big pink letters alongside charts dedicated to their gene, blood, and magical compatibility (which were all at a horrifying low). 

Harry’s grip on the paper tightened—why were they deciding Ginny’s fate without her permission or... or even her presence? It shouldn’t have been possible, because they were allowed to find their own partners.   
  
But this was the Ministry that refused to believe Voldemort’s reappearance. The one that sent a sadistic DADA professor that tortured students in her pink office.  
  
They would do anything except their jobs. 

“This is illegal,” Harry seethed, dropping the files onto the desk in aversion. “Doing something like this won’t just make just me your enemy—you’ll be an enemy to the public.”

“Oh, but we can and we’d still have the public on our side. It’s within all parties rights, you see.” He slid the last paper out of the foldier, and pointed to a dare on the calendar: _16 August, 1998._ “That’s the last Wedlock Ball.” 

Harry grit his teeth. “Ginny doesn’t have to attend the Wedlock Ball—she can choose her partner.” 

Nixon shook his head, amused. “Potter, Ms. Weasley is a pureblooded woman, therefore she is required to either attend the wedlock ball and have a match raffled that’s been pre-produced given to her.” 

With every word, Harry found it harder to concentrate on the task at hand and not hex the Chief Warlock. 

“Or do it the simple way and know her match earlier and be able to plan ahead,” he shrugged. “With all your complaining, you’d think we weren’t doing her a simple favor.”

“You’re ruining her life because of blood,” he says, breathing against the rapid beats of his heart. Each one rushed blood to his hands, and he wanted nothing more than to tell the collide of his fist to Nixon’s jaw. “Her blood means nothing.” 

Harry caved into the urge by crumbling the papers underneath his fingers. Nixon watch unfazed when Harry threw the balls onto the floor. “Her being a pureblood shouldn’t dictate what choices she has and doesn’t have.” 

“You naive little boy.” Nixon studied him for a while, but stamped over Harry’s venture to vehemently defend himself. “Blood means everything in this world. Your muggleborn friend has filled your head with equity rot, and now you’ve both concluded that all wizards jump the same height.”

“You are _wrong._ Blood determines how high you jump, Potter. It determines _where_ you are welcomed to jump, and countless wizards similar to yourself are daft enough to trust that they can simply _stand_ where others _stand_.” 

“Blood is—!”

 _“Blood is very the foundation of this world,”_ Nixon hissed, causing Harry to flinch back from the ferocity behind his words. “And you should never do as much as touch the property of another individual who’s blood is superior to yours.” 

“And you believe that?” It was bullshit. If Nixon didn’t see that, Harry wasn’t going to spend his time persuading him otherwise. “It’s…” He couldn’t find the correct word to describe the bubbling feeling that was resonating deep within his stomach. “It’s..” 

“It’s the wizarding world, Potter. This is the way it has always been before undereducated but overconfident fools like Granger entered.” 

Harry was astounded. Nixon Paris had to be a pureblood supremacist with the nonsense he was spouting. He looked over to the chamber door wondering if he and Hermione could change places. Perhaps she had the right words needed to deal with this maniac. 

His previous talks of zeal were mellowed out by realization that he was speaking to a wall of pureblood supremacy. He needed to bring Ginny so that she could make her own decision. He couldn’t make it for her, no matter what bullshit came out of Nixon’s mouth. 

Her input became twice as needed, even if she’d promised that she was alright with not receiving Harry’s exemption. After hearing Nixon blabber, he wouldn’t be doing it again regardless of how Hermione and Ron said she’d feel. 

“Would you say that one man and one hundred women can produce more offspring than one hundred men and one woman?”

Harry sighed. “I won’t answer that, Nixon.” 

“All bloodlines are significant, and, because the pureblood lines have been severely weakened, one pureblood woman is more significant than ten pureblood men.” 

“That still doesn’t make it alright,” Harry’s voice is quiet, the passion behind Nixon’s rivaling his own brimming temper. “You’re treating people like livestock; you’re… you’re breeding them like _cows_..” 

“The noble purebloods are so true to their bloodline that breeding methods such as this are normalized in the community.” He waved his hand and the papers vanished.

It was an incredible and casual display of power. But Harry’s mindset never faltered. “Rest assured that they are well in health, and _do not_ need your pity. You are free to choose now, Potter.”

“On the condition that you accept my terms, it will be mandatory under a magical contract that you follow the Blood Act and give a public announcement of your involvement,” Nixon’s clarifies, his voice, now lifeless and unconcerned, telling him what Hermione had told him beforehand. 

“Provided that you decline them,” he hums, pulling out a second quill that was a deep blue instead of white. “Well, Ms. Weasley will be turned into… what was that you named it? Livestock, yes? Ginevra will be put into a breeding system.” 

His heartbeat spiked. “Ginny has to be here.” 

“Ms. Ginevra is a minor at the moment,” Nixon reminds him, lips closing into slits in his impatience. “Her legal guardian would need to be here in the event that you decline my offer. Be that as it may…”

His eyes flicker up to him, the scan of familiar icy arrogance and empty apathy settling on his hair covering his scar. “...her fate has been crafted and her transitioning into adulthood won’t change her ability to decide her own decisions. 

“You carry the power to decide her fate, not her mother or father. Not even herself, Mr. Potter. Their presence would be, at most, another person to share the news with.” 

“After all, it _is_ the Blood law that we’ve all been dedicating ourselves to. We’re all law-abiding citizens, aren’t we now?” He holds out the quill. 

“Where would you prefer to sign?” 

**Author's Note:**

> all mistakes are mine! hope you enjoyed.
> 
> note: i’m adding a warning here for future sexual content because i don’t know how to add that in the tags >:(


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